Optical inhomogenities in strongly pumped laser media cause undesirable divergence in the output beam. The optical inhomogenities are caused by such problems as vibration, misalignment and heating of the reflecting surfaces, and aberations and turbulence in the lasing medium. These undesirable conditions result in lower system efficiency and keep the system from performing at its diffraction limit.
Recent research and development in the area of phase conjugation has sought to provide solutions to many of these problems. However, no systems developed to date have dealt with efficiency problems, such as reducing the demand on the flow system in flowing media lasers, and increasing the average and/or peak power levels, while improving the overall beam quality in high brightness lasers by achieving single-mode output at high power. In addition, present systems have not been able to make phase conjugate corrections to the laser beam wavefronts without suffering efficiency losses. Accordingly, a system which provides a solution to these practical problems would be a significant improvement in the art.